The Power of WordPress – It’s Not Just for Blogging

Tips

Jul 02, 2018

Since its launch in 2003, WordPress has come a long way. While it is widely used for blogging – and it is a very good platform for this – it has also grown into the most popular ecommerce platform on the internet.

It’s well designed, flexible and used by a host of businesses big and small to sell their products. Unlike some ecommerce platforms, it’s also ludicrously easy to use. So, if you’re wondering what the big deal is about WordPress, read on.

It’s Free!

That’s right. One of the biggest selling points for businesses sizing up their ecommerce options is cost. Some alternatives like Drupal are free up to a point, but you need to pay to unlock their true potential. Not so with WordPress. It’s true that there are elements you can pay for in WordPress, such as optional plug ins, but these aren’t a prerequisite to making the most of the platform. You can do very well just using the totally free parts of WordPress. For an ecommerce platform that accounts for a whopping 59 percent of the content management software market share, this is pretty special. You get all the amazing functionality and adaptability of WordPress without having to spend a single penny.

Flexible to Your Needs

One of the reasons WordPress has gained such an unassailable position over its competitors is the fact that it can be tailored to any business. The fact that it’s free doesn’t mean millions of businesses all look the same either, in fact it’s quite the opposite. WordPress has a massive range of themes and plugins so your ecommerce store looks and works the way you want it to.
Etsy, Variety magazine, Reuters and even the White House website all use WordPress to power their domains which illustrates just how flexible and customisable this CMS is.

Easy to Manage

Many business owners don’t feel overly confident playing around with complex programs and software, and that’s another area where WordPress excels. It couldn’t be easier to manage inventory, payments and anything else you need to do. Most processes are just a few clicks and you’re done.
Updating is equally as easy, whether this is in the form of looks, plugins or a new roster of products. You don’t need HTML knowledge and it’s much easier to change things up in WordPress than on other ecommerce platforms like Drupal and Joomla. This means more agility for your business website and no long wait times to make the changes you need to make.

SEO is Simplified

Optimising your product descriptions is important to ensure that Google ranks them highly enough to put them in front of potential customers. WordPress has various plugins – Yoast being the most popular – that will help you optimise your SEO to a keen edge.
Again, Yoast is free (aside from a couple of premium options) and comes with things like title and meta templates for consistent, on-point branding. The plugin will also help with things like Canonical URLs – which basically means each link on your site is unique and recognised as such by Google, boosting SEO. It’s a powerful set of tools and one that takes the sting out of your SEO work.

In-Built Responsive Design

With mobile website use becoming the main form of internet browsing, it’s important to have a site that’s equipped to deal with this and offer the very best experience possible to mobile users. Happily, WordPress has you covered here as well. The vast majority of WordPress themes are responsive from the ground up, making it easy for mobile internet users to visit and browse your business’s ecommerce store. What’s more, the WordPress interface dashboard is also fully optimised to work on mobile, so you can make quick changes to your site on the fly.

If you’re considering using WordPress as an ecommerce platform for your business, Happy2Host has extensive experience with WordPress development. Dedicated, professional and tailoring your business site to your needs, Happy2Host can help with every facet of WordPress design. Get in touch today.